As they drained the boar Urist began to give gave out orders. “Head back to the camp and prepare to fire up the ground pit. Elrish, Rork came over here I’ll show you how to prepare boar meat.”

Elrish poked the boar with a spear, “You know how to prepare this beast boss?”

Rork chimed in as he also poked the corpse with his spear. “Where did you learn how to do this?”

Urist snorted, “Of course I know how to prepare this beast I learned it from hunting with my family. Now you remember how we cut up the deer? Well, we’re going to do it differently and hang the boar on its back legs. Now first what you do is cut the fur off as the hair might get on the meat.

“First you cut the around here before passing the knees on each leg cutting around in a circle. Then you take the cuts and gather them to the stomach and this next part is important to pay extra attention.”

“Ok boss seems simple enough.”

“Yeah, this seems pretty what next?”

“Glad you’re getting it. Next, you slice open the stomach by running the blade from near the private parts to its neck.”

“The private parts?” Asked Rork.

“You mean the thing wiggling between its legs?”Asked Elrish.

Urist rolled his eyes, “Yes the floppy thing. Now pay attention to how I use the knife. You don’t wanna cut too deep up you’ll cut into the organs and waste the meat.”

Finished explaining the cut Urist ran the blade down in a smooth manner.

“Now that the major cuts are finished we’re going to skin it. Now before I explain how I do it you guys wanna guess how I’m gonna do it?”

“Easy you’re going to use your strength to rip off the skin.” Figured Elrish.

“Nah that doesn’t sound right. If I remember correctly from the deer you’re going to use the knife and cut the fat from the skin.” Retorted Rork.

Urist looked at Rork and nodded his head. “Correct. You see Elrish if I used such a method I might slip and cause the organs to rupture or I could ruin the skin which would be a waste. Now watch how I do it.”

Turning back to the boar he grabbed the skin and began cut it away from the fat and muscles. When he finished he placed the hairy side down under the boar turned back to the entranced dwarfs watching the process.

“Now the next important check is the organs and this something you must pay attention to or you could end up killing us all.”

“Oh? Why is that boss? Isn’t meat just meat?”

“How could something dead kill us when it isn’t rotten?”

Hearing them asks questions with such curiosity made Urist happy. “Ya see, since we don’t have freezers we can’t kill off parasites easy. So we must cook the meat thoroughly like we do the fish to prevent getting sick.

But as long as it’s cooked well it’s not a problem to eat. What’s really worrying is eating infected meat from the carcass could jump to a person, make them sick, then kill them. And such a disease could then spread to the rest and kill the rest of the population. To be on guard against such a thing, it’s best to thoroughly look at the organs. Which if you know how to do it and have a careful eye it's not the mentally demanding. Come closer and I’ll show.”

The two dwarfs moved closer and watched as Urist dug his hands into the boar's guts and pulled out the liver. “You see this liver? This is a good place to check to see if the meat is any good. Ya, see this nice purplish-red color? It’s a good sign that this is a healthy bore.

“The next thing you check is the lungs if they have any spots or discolored. You want a healthy color to ensure that the meat is good. From what I can tell this is a perfectly healthy boar we can eat. So we’re gonna take the heart and liver and use the rest of the organs maggot and fish bait.”

“I get what fish bait is but what's maggots and what use do they have?”

“Good question Rork. Maggots are fly larva and can be used as bait or fried up to eat. It sounds disgusting but they’re good eaten. We’re going to use the head and useless guts to attract the maggots now I’ll show you how to clean out you the guts and start cutting up the meat.”

With eyes shining, the two watched as Urist systematically cut apart the flesh. As he cut he let his mind wander.

Thanks to having oil and salt we could fry up some meat for some good pork chops. Oh yeah, how could I forget that we can have some amazing bacon? Just thinking about it makes my mouth drool.

While he thought of the different types of meat Urist got to cutting into the front legs and making his way made to the ribs until he reached close to the backstrap. The second part was to remove the shoulder from the foot and since he didn’t want to buy a saw he had to get a little more creative.

Urist cut and kept cutting with his knife until he reached the jointed and popped it off by twisting it. One after the other he handed them off to Rork to place inside the cleaned out food boxes.

He then turned the boar around and began cutting below the ham of the back legs cutting until he reached near the ribs and along the backbone. This gave him some nice slabs of meat from both sides.

Once again he handed these back off to Rork.

“Ok, this next part is a little more forceful. Elrish I’m going to need the sword.”

“Here you go, boss. But Um what are you going to do with it?”

Urist responded with a smiled, “Just watch and you’ll understand.” Gabbing the bronze sword on one hand and the ribs in another Urist began to chop away at the ribs attached to the spine to remove them.

With a few whacks they come off nice and easy, he handed those off to Rork. With the ribs now removed, he could cut off the tenderloins located near the back of the spine.

And finally, it was time to cut off the glorious ham legs. With a slight smile, he began to cut at the area where hind legs and spine were connected. One splice at a time until he finally reached the socket where the bones were attached. Pulling the leg slightly, Urist stuck his knife into the joint and twisted. With a sick popping sound, the leg came off of the spine which he caught and gave to Elrish. He did the same for the other hind leg and passed this one over to Rork.

With all the parts now disassembled it was time for the last bit of cutting. Carrying the meat in containers the dwarfs headed back to camp and began to cut the meat into manageable chunks and put in the smoker.

The others would take care of cutting them to size and trimming the fat off adding it to the stew. Urist decided it was late in the day and called for everyone to take a break as the food got cooked by Uria, Uora, and Uriana.

He had wanted to help cook but was stopped by Uria. “You already did enough dummy. Let us handle the rest.”

“But I wanna use the spices we just got.”

“You already showed us how to do it so just sit there and relax.”

“Ok…”

Under Uria’s stare, Urist meekly walked away and sat down to rest. Seeing Urist rest she turned around and began cooking with the others. Soon, the smell of meat cooking filled the camp making the dwarfs mouth water over fish and pork stew.

Feeling bored Urist decided to test out the weird skill called Origin Flame he picked out. In its description, it was only for people who tended the first fire made by their civilization. They could store the fire in their bodies and use it as another source of mana.

With enough of the fire, they could make a fire seed inside their bodies. He didn’t know what a fire seed meant, but he knew that the power had one fatal flaw. If the Origin flame ever went out and they used all their stored up fire leaving no trace of the fire then the power would be gone.

He already had gathered some fire just before taking his break so he had some to play around with. Just thinking about how crazy the resolve you needed to stick your hand into the fire to gather it made him wonder where he got this fearlessness.

But trusting in himself and the skill description, he forced back his fear and allowed the flame to enter his body. When it entered it didn’t hurt and instead felt warm to the touch. When he opened his eyes the dwarfs were awkwardly staring at him like he was crazy and another look at the fire revealed that the flames had lowered visibly.

Now he sat once again on his bench and it was finally time to test out origin fire. Gazing now at the scarlet red tattoo on his right hand he focused on drawing the flame from it. The Orgain fire responded and the energy began to flow through his tired body making him feel somewhat powerful. He only pulled out one-fifth of the flames as he didn’t want to pull it all out for the test.

Opening his eyes a small golden flame appeared in his hand that shifted in the wind. Entranced by the fire he tried grabbing it with his other hand. Amazingly he managed to pull on the flame by grasping it with his thumb and middle finger. He began to stretch it to see how far it could go and found that the stretchable fire it could go quite far before breaking at the highest stress area. To which the flame split evenly in both of his hands.

How magical. That flame could have such properties. I wonder how useful it can be in a fight? I’ll test it out when I need to fight again. If it does well I’ll need to keep adding wood to the fire to replenish the flame. I’ll also have to make another pit so Uria can gather her own Origin Fire as it seems it needs time to recover.

With a sigh, Urist was handed a piece of hot tenderloin in a bamboo bowl and started taking bites.

Despite doing it there the first time they pulled it off well enough. This meat is top class.

He savored each bite as he knew that they would have another tough day ahead of them tomorrow. So who knows when they would eat boar again? As he ate, the ideas of plans were turning in his head once again as he waited for the main dish to be served. The dwarfs were in a celebrating mood as the main dish of meat stew entered their bamboo bowls. Spooning mouthfuls of soup the dwarfs were in a heated mood boasted over the others in what they did today.

The taste almost brought Urist to tears as the profound flavor of the spices in the stew.

Finally, something that can wash out the taste of corndogs that has haunted me.

When they all finished their meal Urist began to talk about his plans swimming around his head to the other dwarfs. After he was done and the others had expressed their opinions people started to head to the cave and rest. Urist gave a warning to the dwarfs on guard duty to be careful since dangerous animals were lurking in the darkness by keeping the fire bright and lit before he turned in to rest.

Bamboo Seeding timer activated 5 Days 14 Hours 34 Mins

Rat Tide timer activated 12 Days 14 Hours 34 Mins

Beast Swarm timer activated 20 Days 14 Hours 34 Mins

Point Amount: 1149